


requiem for the living and the long since dead

by bokutoma



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, Legend of the Lake | Linhardt von Hevring & Leonie Pinelli's Paralogue, POV Seteth (Fire Emblem), Reflection, Spoilers for Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), The Sleeping Sand Legend | Claude von Riegan's Paralogue, War, War of Heroes (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Zanado | Red Canyon (Fire Emblem)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28206396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bokutoma/pseuds/bokutoma
Summary: time is all the same; just once, seteth would like to rest
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	requiem for the living and the long since dead

**Author's Note:**

> a gift for my dear berry! merry christmas!

Vengeance runs deep in the blood of the Four Saints, and Seteth wonders how it is that they have managed to fall so far in one lifetime.

Macuil has summarily rejected his pleas for aid, embittered by age-old hurts as he has been, and Indech's power has waned much in the centuries since Seteth has last seen him. In truth, each and every one of them, Seiros included, is nothing when compared to their old prowess, time and human dominance having atrophied the powers once gifted to them by Sothis.

In many ways, though he will never tell Seiros, he is glad for that, but with Agarthans in the shadows and the stark knowledge of what his brothers have become, he cannot help but long for a time when this was not so.

* * *

_Indech is running wild again, just as he has been wont to do since the day he learned to walk. Mother says that he will likely grow out of it with time and maturity, but there is a fondness there that tells Cichol that she hopes he will not. He doesn't understand it, not really; since Macuil was born, Cichol has been serious, ready to help Mother out with whatever she needs._

_There is not much that she cannot do herself even while juggling a burgeoning civilization, of course, but when things slip through the cracks, he is there to catch them._

_Macuil has no such compulsions, solemn though he too is. He is the first to reach for a book, the first to slack in his daily duties as a goddess-child. She is mother to all, of course, but to them, she is that in truth, and Cichol wishes he might take that responsibility a little more seriously._

_It is Seiros who is most like him, but where he feels the burden of being the eldest, she is capable of shaking off her curious moods and enjoying her status as the youngest in the family. Indech dotes on her, always ready to drop whatever he's doing to play a game she has devised, and even Macuil will switch from whatever book he has chosen to devour to one more suited for story-telling. Cichol is not immune, either; she is his darling sister, and he cannot imagine there is something she could ask of him that he would not deliver._

_She is, of course, the best of all of them; with Macuil's talent for black magic, Indech's propensity for fists, his own authority, and a faith that is all her own, Cichol knows that she will be every inch the woman worth following that Mother is._

_He cannot wait to see her in action._

* * *

_Zanado smells like blood and thunder._

_Panic claws at Cichol's throat like a feral wolf as he tears through the rubble and the bloated corpses, feet raw and blistered from the running. A hunting trip for him and his brothers... What a stupid idea that had been!_

Please let her be safe, _he begs, but his throat goes dry when he realizes there is no one left to pray to._

_It takes him three hours to find her, dehydrated and emaciated where she has hidden for days in the fallen structure of the bathhouse. Still, Seiros is alive, and that is more than he could have hoped for, more than he thought he would get when the realization of Mother's death had rocked through all three of them like triplet lightning bolts._

_"Seiros," he whispers, voice cracking as unshed tears threaten to drown him. "Goddess, you're_ safe."

_She looks at him with dull eyes, the green of them near gray with exhaustion and numb apathy. "What?"_

_"We're here, Seiros. We found you. You're safe now."_

_Still, she is uncomprehending, and when Indech and Macuil find them, it is the sight of him sobbing over Seiros's limp, barely breathing body they are greeted with._

_When Seiros wakes from her week-long slumber, it is with vengeance in her eyes._

_He had not wanted to see her lead like this, but he had meant it when he'd sworn to himself that he would follow her anywhere. When she calls for war, he takes up the cry with her._

* * *

Cethleann.

 _Oh Goddess,_ Cethleann.

_She is limp in his arms the way Seiros had been just a few short years before, and as much as that had scarred his soul, this is so, so much worse._

_He does not have to look to know that his wife is dead, so it is all he can do just to keep his eyes on his daughter, to will her lungs to expand and contract as though she is only sleeping, as though she cannot die._

_He is tearing apart from the inside out, and no matter what he does, it will be wrong._

_Still, he withdraws from the war effort, leaving his position as Seiros's right hand to Macuil. He had always been the better of the two when it came to shaking off the pain, anyway._

_When he breaks camp in the night, hoping to sneak off before Nemesis's thrice-cursed army can spot him, Indech claps a hand to his shoulder, his brow drawn low in incredible worry._

_"Take care of her, Cichol," he says, and that hand only grows heavier. "She is all we have left."_

_He knows. She is all he will ever have._

_"I will." The words come automatically, and he prays that this means they will hold true. "I will, or I will die trying."_

_And what is his once-carefree brother to say to that?_

* * *

It is an odd thing, seeing his brothers after all this time. Time and exhaustion have tempered the once bold nature of Indech, have turned him from a rowdy troublemaker much like the Bergliez boy to the insightful man Seteth had known he would become.

It is a funny thing to call him a man, but Seteth will remember his brothers as they were, as they deserved to be.

Macuil, however, has only let his worst traits be exacerbated. Part of Seteth wants to play the elder brother and scold him for this, but really, what right has he to judge? He had abandoned his family to the war, and though he would not have made a different choice as long as Flayn's life had hung in the balance, he regrets that he could not be there when it had clearly mattered most.

Given time, he wonders if this might change, if he could find a way to restore his brothers to Nabatean bodies and take up the false mantle of humanity. Then, at least, neither would have to be so alone. 

It matters little, though. Once again, he has a war to win and the vengeance of his sister to exact.

This time, at least, he will not fail.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: @kingblaiddyd


End file.
